It is well known that backing up a vehicle with a trailer attached is a difficult task for many drivers. This is particularly true for drivers that are untrained at backing with trailers such as, for example, those that drive with an attached trailer on an infrequent basis (e.g., have rented a trailer, use a personal trailer on an infrequent basis, etc.). One reason for such difficulty is that backing a vehicle with an attached trailer requires counter-steering that is opposite to normal steering when backing the vehicle without a trailer attached and/or requires braking to stabilize the vehicle-trailer combination before a jack-knife condition occurs. Another such reason for such difficulty is that small errors in steering while backing a vehicle with an attached trailer are amplified thereby causing the trailer to depart from a desired path.
Accordingly, various approaches for backing a trailer that provide simplified human machine interfaces and that overcome at least some of the difficulties in reversing a trailer using a vehicle have been developed. Most of such systems require some way to monitor the trailer position relative to the vehicle, which is typically done by monitoring the angle of the trailer with respect to the vehicle to which it is coupled along a point of such coupling. Some systems, for example, track a marker or the like that must be assembled with the particular trailer coupled with the vehicle, meaning that towing of multiple trailers with a single vehicle requires such makers to be fixed with all of such trailers, and for the position of such fixation to be known by the vehicle. Other systems have been developed to estimate the hitch angle using vehicle dynamics; however, many such systems require other characteristics of the trailer to be known by the vehicle, meaning that such characteristics must be entered into system memory within the vehicle and recalled in connection with the particular trailer being reversed. Accordingly, improvements to trailer position tracking may be desired or otherwise useful.